Ella and Abortion

October 5, 2010
By Jeanne Monahan

This fall, Watson Pharmaceuticals will begin manufacturing a new drug called “ella.” Ella was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on August 13, and was categorized as an “emergency contraceptive.” That categorization is misleading: As the Family Research Council and several allied organizations have been explaining to pharmacists and the public at large, the drug has the potential to induce abortion.

Responding to this campaign, Watson Pharmaceuticals is claiming that ella is “not an abortifacient drug.” Yet the company did not address charges that the drug can abort an implanted baby. Nor did it dispute the FDA’s labeling information, which reads that “alterations to the endometrium [the inner membrane of the uterus] that may affect implantation may also contribute to the efficacy.”

Watson also failed to comment on the label statement that “pregnancy should be excluded before prescribing ella.” Why is ella “contraindicated” for pregnancy? Because, as the FDA notes, in studies of ella that were conducted on pregnant animals, all of the baby rats and half of the baby rabbits were aborted. the rest

Until now, no major pharmaceutical company in the U.S. has ever willingly linked itself to abortion.